The Belarusian dictator Alexandr Lukashenko says he has ordered that the border with neighboring Ukraine be sealed off.

"A large number of weapons are coming to Belarus from Ukraine," said Lukashenko on Friday.

"That's why I instructed the border security forces to close the border with Ukraine completely."

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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    The dictator did not provide any evidence.

    Ukraine announced that it had not been officially informed about a border closure and said that closing the border, which is more than 1,000 kilometers long, would primarily cause the Belarusian people to suffer.

    In addition, the Foreign Ministry in Kiev rejected the arms delivery allegations: They were part of the disinformation, repression and intimidation of the Belarusian population by the regime.

    Allegedly planned assassinations

    Lukashenko spoke of a planned assassination attempt on a state media worker using a pistol brought to Belarus from Ukraine and an attempt to blow up a Russian liaison station in the country, but everything was thwarted.

    Lukashenko did not present any evidence here either, speaking vaguely of an attempted coup behind which the neighboring countries Lithuania, Poland, Germany and the United States were behind. Belarusian authorities have exposed "terrorist sleeper cells, so-called self-defense units" that have planned a coup. All those involved were "found and imprisoned within two days". Lukashenko sprinkled a few family names in his description.

    Since the wave of protests last August after the fraudulent presidential elections brought him into distress, his regime has portrayed Belarus as the target of a plot by the West and neighboring countries, which is also directed against Russia.

    Lukashenko's most important opponents have exiled particularly in Lithuania, Poland and the Ukraine.

    For months, the regime has been using migrants to put pressure on their neighbors.

    Threats to Lithuania

    Lukashenko has now said free of paper that a week ago a drone with explosives was intercepted from Lithuania and said that migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran will no longer be "held back". Belarus has "neither money nor strength as a result of your sanctions," said Lukashenko, referring to the significantly tightened EU sanctions last week due to the forced landing of the Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius in Minsk in May.

    Lukashenko probably said to the address of Lithuania: “You have crossed a border. And we cannot forgive them for that. ”According to Lithuanian information, 822 migrants who had come into the country from Belarus have been apprehended since the beginning of the year, ten times more than in the whole of last year. Lukashenko had already said in May that Belarus had "stopped drugs and migrants - now you will eat and catch them yourself".